Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy’s investigation of safety issues with firearms manufactured by Glock made headway when a Suffolk Superior Court judge on Friday denied Glock’s attempt to avoid complying with a demand for records by AG Maura Healey.

Since guns are not defined as consumer products, they are exempt from regulation by any federal authority governing defective products. The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco) has no authority to force product recalls. (http://www.bna.com/gun-defects-no-n57982069629/)

Healey’s request of the documents was made under a civil investigative demand as part of an investigation of safety concerns involving firearms manufacturers Glock and Remington. Massachusetts has laws relating to public safety, despite the fact that guns are not subject to a federal authority. Judge Edward P. Leibensperger ruled that the Supreme Judicial Court has already established in favor of the Attorney General’s authority “to prevent the deceptive or unfair sale or transfer of defective products which do not perform as warranted.”

AG Healey’s office cited incidents involving Glock pistols, including one in which a Glock handgun fired in the pocket of a Massachusetts man who was dancing at a July Fourth party.
Glock has argued that it only sells guns to police and the military not consumers, but a database of gun sales between 2014 and 2015 appeared to show that 8,000 of Clock handgun sales in Massachusetts were not to people in law enforcement.

Judge Leibensperger said Healey “has good and sufficient grounds” to ask Glock to hand over the records based on safety and other concerns.

The attorneys at Parker Scheer have significant experience in product liability cases. If you or a loved one has been injured by a defective product please contact us today for a free consultation.

For more on this story, please click on the link to read the Boston Globe article.

On October 15th, an emergency order took effect banning Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on airline flights. The phones have been banned in checked bags, carry-on bags and have also been banned as shipped air cargo.

The emergency order was issued after Samsung’s phone, which was released in August, repeatedly caused problems due to overheating batteries. The product’s flaw was one that has affected not only devices and laptops but also Tesla cars and Boeing’s 787 jetliner. Overheating lithium-ion batteries are the reason that e-cigarettes and hoverboards can’t be brought on plane, and why there have been recalls of products like hoverboards, and most recently Samsung’s flagship phone.

Just recently, a family whose million dollar house burned down after a hoverboard caught fire sued Amazon when they couldn’t track down the maker of the product (under Tennessee Law they were entitled to do so). The family bought the hoverboard in January 2016 after reports of fires in 2015. The family reportedly felt more comfortable buying the product as it contained Samsung batteries, which hadn’t been flagged as unsafe until the Note 7 drew attention to them in August this year.

Smartphones typically have a single cell, but other larger products can have many. Even NASA isn’t immune from the dangers of lithium-ion batteries: NASA’s robotic rescuer Robo-Simian exploded dramatically in a recent accident that fortunately didn’t cause injury. Because lithium batteries are lightweight and take a long time to lose their charge they are ideal for sending spacecraft on long missions, and also for shipping in bulk by manufacturers. Due to the number of cells in the robot’s battery, the NASA explosion was larger than a small fire caused by an overheating cellphone. Accidents can be caused when the current that flows across the highly flammable liquid electrolyte between the positive and negative side of the battery hits an excess of max voltage causing the battery to fail and sometimes explode. However even though the NASA battery wasn’t overcharged and was being monitored, it still failed. Early analysis indicates that one cell in the battery was damaged, which sent misleading information to the monitoring equipment causing the cells to become overcharged. NASA’s flight testing is rigorous, and an expert has suggested that this robot may not have been subjected to as stringent testing because it wasn’t built to fly. The volatility of lithium-ion batteries in everyday products show that these products may not be being handled correctly at the manufacturing stage, or that we don’t yet comprehend their potential risks. For example, even after a mass recall of the Note 7 in September, a Galaxy Note 7 device deemed “safe” by a Samsung fix reportedly caught fire on a Southwest Airlines plane. The New York Times recently drew attention to Samsung’s safety issues in numerous other areas of product safety and their opaque response to customer complaints.

When lithium-ion accidents do happen, injuries can be devastating and cause damage beyond burns. In exploding e-cigarette cases, injuries not only include burns, but also chemical burns and blast injuries. Recently, a laptop battery fire was reported to have caused chemical burns. Lithium-ion accidents can cause life-threatening or disfiguring injuries, either through explosion, chemical burns or fires started by overheating devices. If you or a loved one has been injured in a lithium-ion battery incident, please call the attorneys at Parker Scheer to receive a consultation.

Following pressure from lawmakers, General Motors (GM) has recently recalled 1.6 million vehicles that reportedly share a defective ignition switch linked to a number of deaths across the country. According to reports, the ignition switch in the recalled vehicles, which is connected to the airbag system, activates the airbag system when drivers start their cars. However, the airbag system does not remain active the entire time the vehicle is running, a serious safety defect in the device. Alarmingly, GM employees and designers admittedly knew about the defective parts since as early as 2004.

The car company has recalled six models of vehicles manufactured between 2003 and 2007, which share the same ignition parts. In a press release, GM explained that there is a risk, under certain conditions, that the ignition switch in certain vehicles may move out of the “run” position, causing a partial loss of electrical power to the safety system in the vehicle. GM acknowledges that adding a key fob or having other keys on a ring may increase the risk of the partial electrical loss occurring. The press release advises drivers to remove all other keys and key fobs from their key rings to avoid any issue, but the risk of having the safety system rendered ineffective remains.

GM has officially linked twelve deaths to the defective ignition switch causing airbag failures. TheNew York Times recently reported on the issue, focusing on federal crash data that states that 303 people have died from airbag failures in the recalled GM vehicles since 2003. The media has been focusing on the federal data, as it suggests that many more than twelve deaths may be attributed to the faulty electrical system in GM’s vehicles. The database, called the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, has since been criticized by GM executives. Spokespersons for the car manufacturer suggest that the database only analyzes raw data, and that no conclusion can be drawn as to whether or not the fatalities were caused by a defective product. Rather, GM claims that the data does not reveal a more widespread problem, but a number of incidents unrelated to the faulty systems.

A 2009 incident cited by the Times article involved a 25-year-old woman in Tennessee who was killed while driving a 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt – one of the GM vehicle models now recognized as potentially having a defective ignition. The young woman struck a tree head-on, the airbags in her vehicle failed to deploy, and she struck her head on the steering wheel. There was also a suggestion that her seat belt did not lock. Her family reached a settlement with the car manufacturer, but were unaware until recently of any specific defect in the GM car’s ignition system that may have caused the airbag failure.

GM began recalling vehicles for this safety issue in February of this year. Congress is reportedly slated to hold hearings in the coming months to investigate when GM knew of the safety issues and what could have been to make their vehicles safer to drive.

As recently discussed by WebMD, statistics released in a new study show that the number of highchair-related injuries has risen steadily over the past decade. The study focused on the period between 2003 and 2010, the years preceding the adoption of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Since the Act went into effect in 2011, millions of highchairs have been recalled for defective design or manufacture. While researchers attribute some recent highchair injuries to parents and caregivers misusing products, defective design was found to be the major cause of injuries.

The study appeared in Clinical Pediatrics, and revealed that thousands of children suffer injuries from highchairs each year. The injuries are often serious, as the study found over 9,500 children require emergency care because of falls, cuts, and other injuries resulting from highchair use. Between 2003 and 2010, the number of highchair-related injuries increased by 22%.

Researchers believe that errors by parents or caretakers may have resulted in some of the accidents, often due to improperly restraining the child in the highchair. However, researchers found that defective products contributed significantly to the rising number of child injuries from highchairs. The number of defective products was, in part, the impetus behind the enactment of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

The CPSIA, which went into effect in 2011, lists certain requirements for children’s products and their manufacturing. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) proposed the law and administers and regulates products created domestically and abroad. The CPSIA imposes more stringent requirements on products deemed “durable toddler and infant products,” which are designed to be used by children under 5 years old. Highchairs are considered “durable toddler and infant products,” and thus must to meet the strictest statutory requirements.

The statistics published in the pediatric study cover the seven years preceding the enactment of the CPSIA. Additionally, the study suggests that many parents are still using the products manufactured before the adoption of the new regulations. Many parents, especially those with multiple children, reuse highchairs that predate the CPSIA. But even proper use of the product may not protect against a defective product design.

The car event data recorder installed under most vehicles’ hoods is becoming increasingly important in civil and criminal lawsuits. The device, colloquially known as the “black box,” stores data regarding a driver’s habits, and it is capable of detailing the events that take place during each trip in the car. As the boxes were long used by car manufacturers to record performance data, the new trend is to use the information stored as evidence from automobile accidents.

Roughly 96% of all new vehicles sold in the United States have a black box installed. National lobbies from car insurance companies, law enforcement, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hope that 100% of cars will have the black box installed by 2014.

Recently, the high-profile events in Massachusetts involving Lt. Governor Tim Murray increased awareness of the issues and exemplified how the black box data may be used by law enforcement or a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit. According to reports, the Lt. Governor was involved in a car accident and was interviewed by state police at the scene. Lt. Governor Murray stated that he was not speeding and that he was wearing his seatbelt, but the black box in his car offered a different story. The black box installed in his vehicle recorded that the public official was driving over 100 mph. No one was injured in the accident, but the facts illustrate the potential evidentiary value of the data stored on a driver’s black box.

The national discourse is focused on articulating clear standards for when it is acceptable for law enforcement or parties in litigation to use this data. Currently, there is no such direction. On one hand, the information stored is essential to discovering the truth behind a car accident, but on the other hand, the availability of the data could raise concerns about a driver’s privacy rights.

Currently, 14 states have legislated regarding the use of black box data as evidence. In general, the uniform message of those laws is that the data belongs to the vehicle’s operator, but the information may be accessible via court order. The legislation has prompted attorneys to subpoena the information stored on vehicle’s black box in an attempt to prove (or disprove) liability in an automobile accident. The release of the information has resulted in some drivers losing coverage from their insurance companies, but has also been telling of the facts behind many motor vehicle accidents that have caused personal injury.

In other scenarios, the vehicle information stored in the black box has been used as evidence in products liability suits. A driver in Nevada was recently involved in a fatal car accident when his air bag failed to deploy. The information stored on the vehicle’s black box clearly showed that the vehicle was driving fast enough that the airbag should have deployed. This evidence was critical to proving that the airbag’s failure to deploy was a result of a defective device.

Obtaining black box information in the investigation of car accidents for use in personal injury or products liability cases can clearly be very valuable. “For most of the 100-year history of the car, it used to be ‘he said, she said,'” said Thomas Kowalick, an expert in event data recorders and a former co-chairman of the federal committee that set the standard for black boxes. The data collected by the vehicle’s black box and presented through expert testimony at trial would help a jury in assessing the credibility of what “he” said versus what “she” said.

Few things are more fulfilling than seeing a child’s face light up when she opens her gifts this holiday season. Some toys will entertain your child for hours on end, while others may be tossed aside and forgotten almost immediately. Regardless of your child’s expert opinion on the entertainment value of the toys, one thing is certain: each toy must be free of choking hazards, dangerous levels of lead and other toxins, and design and manufacturing defects.

The United States Public Interest Research Group’s 2013 “Trouble in Toyland” report warns consumers about the most common hazards in some popular children’s toys just in time for the holidays. Historically, the report has identified children’s products that could cause injury, choking, strangulation, and toxic chemical exposure. The 2013 report made important findings about the lead content in toys, other toxic chemicals in toys, choking hazards, magnets, and noisy toys, and identified some specific toys that raised significant child safety concerns. For example, the report noted the following:

The Captain America Soft Shield, a vinyl toy, had 29 times the amount of lead as the legal standard.

The Ninja Turtles Pencil Case contained a phthalate chemical that has been banned from toys, and excessive levels of toxic cadmium.

The Chat & Count Smart Phone by Leap Frog made sounds measuring more than 85 decibels, and prolonged exposure to such loud noise – especially when the toy is placed to the ear as intended – can cause gradual hearing loss to children and adults alike.

The Princess Wand, manufactured by Greenbrier International, contained small parts that could pose a choking hazard.

Many toys in the Littlest Pet Shop line of toys by Hasbro contained small parts that could cause choking, and also had labeling violations.

According to the report, choking is the leading cause of toy-related deaths among children. Additionally, the majority of all toy-related injuries happen to children ages two and under. Though the number of children’s product recalls has decreased in recent years, signaling a positive change in the regulation and manufacturing of children’s products, toy hazards continue to be a significant threat to our most vulnerable population.

Of primary importance is the prevention of harm to children. You can be vigilant and help minimize the risk of injury or death to children by following the tips provided atwww.ToySafetyTips.org. However, if your child has been injured by a toy or other product, ensure your child receives immediate and necessary medical attention. Document and photograph your child’s injuries, and preserve the toy that caused the injury in the exact condition it was in when your child was harmed, as well as any packaging you may still have for the toy. Contact a personal injury attorney at Parker Scheer to discuss whether you and your child may have a negligence, breach of warranty, failure to warn, or other product liability case against the toy designer, manufacturer, or distributor.

Chobani has decided to issue a voluntary product recall of yogurt following reports of at least 89 people falling ill.

A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that those who have fallen ill have experienced symptoms similar to food poisoning that have included nausea and cramps. However, the cases have not been confirmed, and no link between the illnesses and eating the yogurt has been proven. Chobani is working with the FDA to remove the defective product from grocery shelves as quickly as possible in order to avoid any further potential food poisoning.

The product recall affects those cups that have the code 16-012 and expire between September 11 and October 7. At this time, the yogurt in question is not considered a public health threat, but the mold can cause health problems, especially for anyone who already has a compromised immune system.

As of September 9th, the source at the Twin Falls, Idaho plant had been found, and the company has already taken steps to prevent a similar problem in the future. However, Chobani has not publicly stated neither the cause nor what the preventative measures taken have been. Late last week, a spokeswoman for the company said the 95% of the defective product had already been destroyed. The company also noted that the reason the mold became an issue was because of the lack of preservatives used in the yogurt. Mucor circinelloides, the mold that was found in the yogurt, is said to be common in the dairy environment. It is not dangerous to most people, and is also not classified as a foodborne pathogen.

Customers who purchased the yogurt noted that the cups looked like they were swollen and bloated. Different sizes of Chobani were affected, ranging from the 3.5 ounce cups all the way up to the 32-ounce tubs. A total of 91 varieties of the product were involved in the recall. Customers who ate the yogurt had various comments about the quality not being right, ranging from a fizzy texture to a taste that reminded one customer of wine.

Adding to the concern, days after the company issued the product recall it was still spotted on grocery store shelves. Retailers in Wisconsin were found to be selling the moldy yogurt despite the fact that a product recall had been issued.

If you purchased the defective yogurt, do not eat it and follow the measures of the recall, which can be found on the company’s website. Any customers who have fallen ill after eating the yogurt are encouraged to see a medical professional and then call Chobani at 877-847-6181. A complete list of the containers can be found on foodsafety.gov. Refunds can also be obtained by contacting Chobani via the company website.

UPDATE: As of September 12, a total of 118 people have reported falling ill after eating the yogurt.

Novartis AG, a Swiss drug company, has recalled almost 200 lots of cough syrup. According to Novartis, the child resistant feature on some bottle caps was functioning improperly.

According to The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), the “child-resistant” caps on some bottles of cough and flu syrup were not as sturdy as advertised. Because the cough syrups contain acetaminophen and diphenhydramine, an overdose of the drugs can cause irreparable harm to children. The CPSC notes that thousands of children each year are poisoned by acetaminophen and diphenhydramine. In large doses, acetaminophen can cause serious liver damage.

The CPSC has warned users of these cough syrups to not use the products if they were purchased between May 2010 and December 2011.

The cough syrup involved in the recall includes 142 lots of Triaminic and 41 lots of Theraflu Warming Relief Syrups. All lots were manufactured in the Lincoln, Nebraska before December 2011 and lot numbers can be found on the Novartis AG web site. Manufacturing at the Lincoln, Nebraska, facility was suspended in December 2011 and the plant has yet to reopen.

Twelve reports of children unscrewing possible faulty caps have been reported. None of these have included the Theraflu syrup. Of these twelve Triaminic cases, four children ingested the cough syrup after opening the bottle. One of the four required medical attention.

According to Novartis, approximately 97% of the recalled syrup has already been used, returned, or put in a warehouse for quarantine. Novartis has asked consumers who still have bottles of affected cough syrup to either destroy or return unused product to Novartis Consumer Health Inc.

In January 2012, Novartis Consumer Health Inc. voluntarily recalled lots of Excedrin and NoDoz products with expiration dates of December 20, 2014 or earlier, as well as Bufferin and Gas-X Prevention products with expiration dates of December 20, 2013 or earlier.
If you have or a family member has been injured by a defective product or need advice on a personal injury matter, please contact Parker | Scheer LLP for a free consultation with one of our experienced Personal Injury Lawyers.

In a recent Federal Court ruling, a judge overseeing claims filed in Massachusetts against New England Compounding Center (NECC) and other related entities linked to the fungal meningitis outbreak, ordered that “destructive testing” and on on-site inspection of the compounding center in Framingham, Massachusetts, may proceed. Parker Scheer LLP is one of approximately two dozen law firms representing victims of the tainted injectable drug, methylprednisolone acetate.

In her Order of December 10th, 2012, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer Boal of the U.S.District of Massachusetts, concluded that “time is of the essence. Several months have passed since the relevant events and the passage of time will only make it more difficult for Green to obtain scientifically valid information.”

Proposed testing will include “sampling of wall, roof, ceiling and foundational assemblies and cavities, interior mechanical systems, including, but not limited to HVAC systems and its ductwork and plumbing systems,” among other tests.

Attorneys from Parker Scheer LLP are expected to attend the upcoming inspection in Framingham.

The outbreak of fungal meningitis caused by the tainted doses of the injectable drug has led to more than 30 wrongful deaths and 490 injuries across the United States.

If you or a family member have been injured or suffered wrongful death due to the fungal meningitis outbreak, it is important to contact an experienced personal injury lawyer quickly. Please contact Parker | Scheer LLP for a free consultation with one of our experienced Personal Injury Lawyers.

Lowe’s, in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, has issued a nationwide voluntary product recall of Master Forge Gas Grills Model # GD4825. According to the recall, the $270 gas grill, manufactured by Guangdong Vanward Electric of China and imported by LG Sourcing, of North Wilkesboro, N.C. poses a potential fire and burn hazard if the gas hose is improperly installed. Specifically, if the hose connecting the gas tank and regulator to the burner control can touch the burner box, the hose can melt and blow up when the grill is lit. Though no one has been injured to date, two incidents where the hose melted and ruptured have been reported.

The Master Forge Gas Grill Model #GD4825 is a four-burner grill with a single door base. It was sold exclusively by Lowe’s from November 2011 through May 2012. About 37 thousand gas grills are involved in the product recall.

Anyone with a Master Forge Gas Grill Model #GD4825 is asked to contact Guangdong Vanward Electric for revised instructions and a warning label to apply to the grill that shows how to properly install the hose and the regulator. Once the instructions are received, gas grill owners should inspect their grill to ensure the hose and regulator are properly installed and run along the outside of the grill cabinet, then pass through the round hole in the side panel.

Companies in this type of situation usually decide to have a product recall when they have found a defect or potential risk with the product. It is an attempt on the part of the company to limit liability for negligence and avoid any potential negative publicity.

“If you or a family member have sustained a personal injury or had an incident with the Master Forge Gas Grill or any defective product, please contact Parker | Scheer LLP for a free consultation with one of our experienced Personal Injury Lawyers.”